New Bunnell Police Chief’s 1st Hours: Cop Assaulted and Injured, Car Thief Tased, Shooting Near Carver Center

Brannon had not figured on the other sort of welcome Bunnell had in store for him: over the next 12 hours, Bunnell was to be the scene of a stolen car incident that turned into an aggravated assault against one of the Bunnell officers (not a new recruit) and the disabling of a patrol car. Hours later, cops were investigating a shooting near Carver Center on Drain Street, where five shell casings were recovered.

Brannon, a former captain and commander at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, left the meeting chamber at the Government Services Building with his family at around 7:40 p.m. Monday evening to head to the reception. Fifty minutes later, some of the same police officers who were celebrating the swearing in and the new recruits, including 32-year-old Sgt. Shane Groth, were called out on a stolen car call from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, as were Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies.

The Cadillac belonged to a 35-year-old Hastings woman. Its OnStar system provided tracking to law enforcement. Dispatchers somehow had also identified the thief as Shayne Steward, 33, who has a long criminal history in the county, including an active warrant for armed robbery with a firearm, and the status of an absconder from the Florida prison system (not because he escaped, but because he was in violation of his probation.)

Bunnell Officer Kilpatrick spotted the Cadillac on U.S. 1 as Steward drove into Bunnell and got behind it with lights and siren activated. Steward drove on. A deputy further south deployed stop sticks that struck at least a tire. Steward drove on, going into South Bunnell–Martin Luther King Avenue, South Anderson, East Drain.

Groth was driving on East Drain with lights and sirens on, heading toward Steward. “As Sgt. Groth approached the 500 block of E. Drain St., the Cadillac appeared to be turning north behind a backyard of a residence,” Steward’s arrest report states. “When Sgt. Groth’s marked patrol vehicle approached the Cadillac, the vehicle changed direction and began to drive towards Sgt. Groth’s patrol vehicle. The front end of the Cadillac collided with the driver side of Sgt. Groth’s patrol vehicle, causing both vehicles to become disabled.”

Steward jumped out of the Cadillac and ran. Between his active warrant and the aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer he had just added to his charges, dispatch now considered him “an immediate threat to the public,” according to the report. Groth, Kilpatrick and several sheriff’s deputies set chase on foot, finding Steward at 201 East Drain–the Carver gym, or Carver Center.

By then Tasers had been unholstered and warnings issued. Steward tripped, fell, tried to get back up, but Groth fired his Taser, striking Steward in the center of his back and his butt. Groth ordered Steward to stay on his stomach and show his hands. Steward would not comply, according to the report, so Groth fired again, hitting Steward in the neck and the chest.

Steward complied, and was arrested. A Flagler County Fire Rescue unit took him to AdventHealth Palm Coast before getting booked at the county jail. Groth, for his part, had sustained “an abrasion to his head and an injury to his left hand,” according to the report. The violence of the vehicle’s crash into Groth’s patrol car had also broken the band on Groth’s Apple watch. Groth went to AdventHealth Palm Coast for treatment as well. The patrol car sustained $1,000 in damages.

Steward is charged with aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, a first degree felony, along with grand theft, fleeing cops and criminal mischief, each a third degree felony. He had a $43,500 bond on those charges, but no bond on his probation violation and an out of county warrant. He’d served two stints in state prison, the last, for armed robbery, ending last April.

The shooting around Carver Gym early the next morning is murkier. It was initially reported at 6 a.m. this morning, when more than a dozen shots were reported near the community center, as was the sound of vehicles speeding. Several other people reported the shooting, eventually narrowing the source of the shooting to a car on South Church Street, where police found several shell casings. No injuries were reported, and no arrests were made.




Brannon, who does not yet have a city-issued cell phone, did not respond to an email today.

After County Judge Andrea Totten swore him in as a chief, Brannon in turn swore in the five new deputies, almost half the force at the Bunnell Police Department. The five new recruits, who include what appears to be the very first Muslim police officer in Bunnell’s history, are Ciara H. Devane, Leanna Marie Homen, Alton G. Ogden, Keith Najee Waheed and Jonathon D. Raihala. They are not Brannon’s hires. They were hired by Interim Police Chief Brannon Snead, whose last day was Monday.